James was a Petty Officer on board HMS Negro. On 19 December 1916, the Grand Fleet left Scapa Flow to carry out exercises between the Shetlands and Norway. On the morning of 20 December, the Flotilla leader HMS Hoste suffered a failure of her steering gear at high speed, almost colliding with several other ships, and was detached to return to Scapa with HMS Negro as escort. At about 1:30am on 21 December, in extremely poor weather, with gale force winds and a heavy sea, Hoste's rudder jammed again, forcing the ship into a sudden turn to port. HMS Negro, following about 400 yards behind, collided with Hoste. The collision knocked two depth charges off Hoste's stern which exploded, badly damaging the rear end of Hoste and blowing in the bottom of Negro's hull, flooding her engine room. Negro sank quickly, and despite the efforts of the destroyer Marmion to rescue survivors, 51 officers and men of Negro's crew were killed.

Robin Marriott